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[Cunning Queen] - Queen Marchesa Political Control

Commander / EDH Burn Competitive Control Group Hug Multiplayer RBW (Mardu)

FrankStar

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Creature (11)

Land (34)

Enchantment (20)

Artifact (14)

Instant (10)

Sorcery (10)

Commander (1)

Commander: Queen Marchesa

Sideboard

Creature (2)

Enchantment (2)

Artifact (1)

Instant (3)

Sorcery (2)

Cunning Queen

"Those who seize power must have the means to hold it." —Queen Marchesa



This is my attempt at a slightly different Queen Marchesa build. Unlike most decks I could find, this one doesn't revolve around building an army and overpowering the board: I prefer the Machiavellian approach of scheming and controlling your opponents in fighting each other for our own benefits.

While not every cards might the best possible choices, I tried to build a flavourful yet competitive multiplayer deck in the Black Rose's image: deceitful, calculating, devious, ruthless. Like the Queen I employ a network of assassins to carefully remove threats and protect the throne. Extort is used to slowly and sneakily weaken other players while we setup our play for power.

A major aspect of the strategy is to keep our intents obscure and avoid attention, all while making allies and supplying them with resources to kill others. This is why I opted for many Group Love cards ( Ghirapur Orrery , Rite of the Raging Storm , Orzhov Advokist ) but also tried to avoid cards that would bring too much heat and hatred ( Kambal, Consul of Allocation , Mogis, God of Slaughter , Polluted Bonds ).


  • You like multiplayer and the politics aspect of EDH Commander
  • You can manage multiple combos
  • You like being in control and having multiple ways of winning
  • You're patient and enjoy slowly killing your opponents
  • You enjoy messy board states
  • You like graveyard interactions and reanimation
  • You're more into aggro decks, especially with big creatures
  • You would rather kill your opponents swiftly
  • You are very competitive


Key aspects of the deck

For those who don't know, Monarch is a player designation that was introduced in Conspiracy: Take the Crown. This mechanic fully works in the Commander format and allows the current monarch to draw a card at the beginning of his end step. (You can read the full rules here).

This card advantage is a great asset - especially since not a lot of players use it in EDH - and as soon as our Queen comes out we will automatically get it. Don't worry too much if you would come to lose the title: the deck is packed with other drawing power and it will just attract attention to someone else. We will also get nifty little assassins which might prove ket assets later in the game.

Unsurprisingly the main goal of this deck is to get enough protection on the board to allow us to boost our life, gain momentum and draw the cards we need to pull off combos.

There are many ways of protecting the throne: either by preventing players from attacking you, making sure we don't take any damage or simply having enough life points to absorb it all.

Here are a few cards & combos for this aspect:

One the best things about this deck is the vast array of ways you can win. I played multiple games where I had 2 or 3 different win conditions in my hand and could pull the trigger any time I wanted.

Based on the assumption that you will often have one of the highest life totals on the table, burning your opponents for the win is often going to be a solid option. The rest of the time you will have multiple alternatives to get the victory.

Here are a few cards & combos for this aspect:

With the amount of protection and all the love that this deck offers, probably nobody will want to attack us. That is not enough though: we need to make sure that they won't just sit and wait. Therefor I've added multiple cards that force creatures to attack, and some utilities to make sure we won't suffer from this.

Here are a few cards & combos for this aspect:

  • Illicit Auction is really fun and can turn out to be a great asset if nobody feel like bidding.
  • I wanted to include cards that gain control of creatures because it can cause a huge surprise and even possibly win games. Insurrection

The most important dimension for me when building a new deck is to always follow a theme. It provides me with a very coherent guideline and make sure that every games I play is like telling a story.

If you ask yourself why I didn't included Card X or Card Y it might simply be that it didn't quite fit in there. I value the fun and immersion way above the competitiveness but feel free to replace anything you want!

Here are a few cards & combos for this aspect:

I would LOVE to get your comments on this deck. Got any combo in mind, card suggestion, concerns, ways to improve it or whatever, please drop them in the comment section. And as always, if you like this deck don't forget to smash the +1 button!

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Revision 37 See all

(5 years ago)

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+1 Crypt Ghastfoil main
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